Monday, June 19, 2017

Death announced of recently released North Korean prisoner

The family has announced the death of Otto Warmbier, recently released in a comatose state after 17 months in captivity in North Korea for apparently considering taking, but ultimately not taking, a propaganda poster as a souvenir on a college trip to the country.

These are not nice people, Donald Trump. The family's statement, posted by NBC:

click to enlarge

My original post incorrectly listed his captivity in years, not months.

More by Max Brantley

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge went to court late yesterday to get the state Supreme Court to halt mediation ordered by Circuit Judge Tim Fox in the case over issuing birth certificates to same-sex parents.

I always scan the Little Rock City Board for items of interest this week and this one caught my eye: A zoning measure required by a proposal to tear down the IHOP at Markham and University.

A series of speakers, beginning with Sen. Joyce Elliott, denounced what they saw as a hidden agenda favoring charter schools at the state Department of Education and asked the state Board of Education for return of local control.

Betsey Wright, former President Bill Clinton's chief of staff when he was Arkansas governor, responds bitterly to a New York Times article today quoting Whitewater Prosecutor Kenneth Starr's warm words about Clinton. She can't forget the lives Starr ruined in Arkansas.

by Max Brantley

May 24, 2016

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One of the booths at this week's Ark-La-Tex Medical Cannabis Expo was hosted by the Arkansas Hemp Association, a trade group founded to promote and expand non-intoxicating industrial hemp as an agricultural crop in the state. AHA Vice President Jeremy Fisher said the first licenses to grow experimental plots of hemp in the state should be issued by the Arkansas State Plant Board next spring.

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Sen. Jason Rapert is keeping a close eye on the Alabama Senate race.

An update to criticism of President Trump's terrible judicial appointments: Even Trump's team realized what a poor choice Alabama lawyer Brett Talley was for the federal bench in Alabama. His nomination has been withdrawn, NPR has reported: